dream dark
by anankes
Summary: underneath our fragile facades you could still see the scars. -serena, calem, tierno, trevor, shauna, and the ugly truth behind the facade. [warnings: abuse, suicide, bullying, and other possible triggers; read at your own discretion]


**a/n: I don't mean to depict anything here in an offensive way. Be warned, there is some rather disturbing content featured in this fic, including child prostitution, mentions of suicide, sexual abuse, homophobic relations, and other possible triggers so _turn away now_ if any of these repel you.**

**A much more sinister twist on the new X/Y characters. I hope this is not considered just a story, but rather a message on the alienation of our society, the indifference to bullying, and the lack of concern for sexual abuse/prostitution/rape. **

* * *

**.: dream dark :.**

* * *

i. mind

Trevor closes his eyes, pushing his textbooks aside and brushing his bangs away from his eyes. He sits down at his desk, eyes narrowed in concentration. He needs complete focus for what he is about to do.

Cracking his snuckles, he squints, the illumination cast by the tiny lamp on the windowsill shedding light upon the pencil set in the desk's center. His hands balling into fists, sweat starting to seep through the pores of his skin, he stares at the number two pencil, at the yellowness of the stick, at the graphite tip, at the rubber eraser that is brand-new and untouched.

Then, something gives. There is a tug from inside him, pulling all the way from his gut to his throat so it feels like someone just kicked him in the balls, and he gives a little gasp as the pencil begins, of its own accord, to slide across the desk's surface.

His eyes are wide with excitement. This is a good start.

He squints harder, willing all his energy into a single point, focusing it like a needle and willing the pencil to break, to shatter, to tear apart, to separate-

-there is a cracking sound, a snap, as the wooden fibers stretch beyond their limit. He can see it, slightly suspended in the air, twisting as the sinuous pieces curl and bend and _break_. The pencil bows to his command; the eraser twists off, the graphite tip crushes and turns to black powder, bits of the yellow-stained wood flake off. And then the pencil lies there, twisted and warped like some broken animal.

The sight of it, destroyed by _him_, gives him such a sense of power that it is almost raw and sexual in nature. He feels a dark thrill at his success. His powers, as they are, are progressing quickly. Only several hours ago he was barely able to move anything smaller than a wooden clip. Now, he can break. Perhaps tomorrow, he will be able to break several of these at once. Tierno pats the packet of pencils, all lined up and ready for destruction, like lab animals.

Tomorrow. And after tomorrow, maybe something bigger.

And then, after that, maybe people.

He lets out a little laugh, imagining the bullies' faces as he, Trevor, the shithead, teacher's pet, nerd, and so-called 'fag trash' turns their heads into mincemeat and rips out their guts without even moving. He pictures himself reading some book while doing it, some drops of blood splattering onto his vest and himself wiping it off like dust, and that makes him laugh harder. He'll pay them back, bruise-for-bruise, for every damn swirly and noogie, for every painful wedgie and rude name they've called him. Absently, he rubs a fading black spot on his arm, scowling.

His eyes darken. He'll show those fuckers. They'll never, ever make fun of him again.

* * *

ii. bare skin

Shauna waves good-bye to her friends and gives them a parting smile before starting on home. As she walks under the dying glow of the setting sun, her smile slips a little, her pace flagging. Night is almost here, and if she isn't dressed and out by 9:00, she'll miss the best times.

She takes the familiar path back home, walking over smooth concrete until she reaches the parts that are cracked and choked with weeds, until she sees the one dangling shutter and the lights all turned on in every window. She is in the bad part, where she lives. The streetlamp above her flickers, but she feels no fear as she enters the dark. She's seen too much, heard too much, _felt _too much to be scared of the hoodlums that roam these parts.

She slips through the green door with the flaking paint undetected, the sound of her mother washing dishes audible in the kitchen. Quickly, lithely, she dashes up the stairs to her room, cheaply decorated in whatever pink wallpaper or paint she could get from Serena and discount furniture items from the local thrift shop. She takes her clothes out of the special spot she keeps them in case her mom looks in her dresser and heads to the bathroom.

There, she slips out of her regular clothes and lets down her hair, letting it cascade in its natural, brown waves. She looks prettier that way, she once heard one of her customers say. With deft hands, she applies mascara, blush, rouge, and lipstick, enhancing her already gorgeous features into something more fitting for the nightlife, for the vampires that lurk in the black. She sprays some of that cheap perfume on her that drives them wild, swishing her hair back and forth to let it sit there like an aroma. When she's done, she hides all of the makeup items in a little niche she carved into the floor, grabs her purse from her bed, and rushes down the stairs as quick as can be.

"Shauna, where are you going?" her mother calls.

"Out!" she calls back. "Be back by twelve!"

She's out, and she's safe, for the time being. Her booted heels click on the sidewalk, and, not rarely, she feels the pang of embarrassment, disgust and shame for her actions, that she is really doing this again and again. She wonders what her friends would think of her if they caught her like this, looking like a common whore.

At the curb where she usually stands, she checks the area for drivers and leans against the wall, pulling out a cigarette from her purse and flicking the lighter. The cigarettes she got from Monica, who introduced her to them a while ago; the cigarette she stole from some guy whose name she no longer remembers and which she does not care to remember.

After a while, she sees the gleam of headlights as a dingy red sports car pulls up. The driver, a middle-aged man with a mole on his cheek and breath reeking of whiskey and tobacco, leans through the window and says, "Hey, honey? Need a ride?"

The intention in his voice is crystal clear and sickening to her. But, she has no choice. She needs the money.

Trying to hold back tears, taking the last puffs of her cigarette before tossing it aside, she leans against the windowsill, puts on a fake grin, and asks, "What'll it be tonight?"

* * *

iii. mother

"You need to eat less, Tierno," his mother chides at the dinner table. She drinks only a cup of chamomile tea, staring at him disapprovingly over the rim of the gravy boat. "If you keep eating such large portions, you'll get diabetes or heart disease and-"

"Yeah, I know, I know," he mumbles, making sure to chew his food first before speaking (because his mother would give him a scolding glare if she saw her son disrespecting one of the most basic rules of etiquette, and at _her _table, no less). "I'm just a growing boy, that's all."

"You really must watch your daily calorie intake, though," she continues, holding her cup with a thin, bony hand. "Yes, you're tall, and that makes up for some of it, but really, if you don't watch your weight, you're going to have a heart attack at sixteen. That's what killed your father, you know. A heart attack."

Tierno knows. His mother reminds him of this fact at every meal, whether he eats little or a lot, whether he's eating a salad or gorging himself on drumsticks and mashed potatoes. His father bulked out to almost 300 pounds before heart failure did him in. Tierno feels himself going along the same path, but he doesn't really care.

As he knaws on yet another piece of pork, his mother snaps, "Tierno! That'll be enough for you! You're fat enough as it is, and you're only going to get fatter."

"No," he grumbles possesively, sliding the plate closer to him, close enough that the gravy sticks to his t-shirt.

Her nostrils flare like a dragon. "Tierno, be a good boy and _give me the dish_."

"No."

"Tierno, you're a pig! Look at you, your mouth is wide open and you're drooling _all over yourself!_" She bolts up in her chair, veins standing out on your neck. "And your shirt! I just washed your laundry a day ago and-and _look! You've got gravy stains on it, you pig!_"

He looks down, and sure enough, bits of half-chewed food have fallen onto his color, coupled with dark spots where the gravy touched his shirt. He stares at the blemishes dully, like he can't quite believe what he's seeing.

"Give-me-_that__!_" Furiously, she walks over and tries to pull the plate away, but he pulls back in the wrong direction and with too much force. The plate flies through the air to smash against the wall, thick globs of food sliding down the plaster.

"_Stupid boy!_" she hisses, smacking him across the cheek. He reels back, stunned, and looking at her with a kind of stupefied horror, and she snarls, "Don't give me that look, you _pig_, you ruin _everything_-"

Smack.

"-_in_-"

Smack.

"-_this_-"

Smack.

"_-HOUSE_!"

_Smack_.

Mutely, he can only stare at his mother's enraged form, shoulders heaving and eyes dilated into black holes. Both his cheeks are red and stinging, and tentatively, he reaches up to rub them. His mother is bull-like, her hands still clenched, and he flinches, waiting for another strike.

Then, just as suddenly, she seems to deflate, all the hate going out of her and her personality going from cold to warm in minutes. Hands a-flutter, she takes a cloth and wipes his cheeks, his chin, his shirt, all the while murmuring, "Oh dear, I'm so terribly sorry, Tierno, I don't know what came over me, and oh, I'm so sorry, please forgive me, Tierno. Tell you what: let's go out for some ice cream tomorrow, alright? Just you and me? It'll be a little treat, but you have to promise me you'll eat less, can you do that, Tierno?"

He nods, thinking, _No, I can't. Because of you._

"That's a good boy, Tierno. Now, let's get you cleaned up, okay? Alright? Does that sound good? We'll give you a sponge bath, okay, with lots of bubbles and I'll wash your hair for you, alright? Is that fine, Tierno?"

He nods again.

"Such a good boy, Tierno. You want to make your mommy _happy_, don't you?"

Nod.

"Oh, I have such a good son," she cooes, touching the inside of his thigh in a gesture too intimate to be motherly (especially for his mother) with that dark gleam in her eye that he hates and dreads. "Come on, Tierno, you just undress and I'll get the hot water running. Be a good boy and get the shampoo, will you? _You want to make your mommy happy_, right?"

And the implications behind those simple words make him want to vomit up everything he's ever eaten, to scream and shout and claw at the prison-cage that is this house with its candy-striped walls and leather sofas and beds filled with too many dark memories for him to count.

But he still shrugs halfheartedly and does as he is told, because in the end, there is nothing else Tierno can do.

* * *

iv. girl

Serena sighs and lays on her bed, listlessly staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. Everything is pink, as girly as can be, and the faint smell of strawberries lingers in the air. From her shampoo and from the stick of gum she chewed for five seconds before tossing into the trash. Dentists say gum-chewing is actually good for your teeth, but schools ban it because chewed gum attracts bacteria.

Schools are kind of boring that way, with their rules and regulations and parameters of what's normal and what isn't. She gives another sigh and wonders who defines normality. Some god, like Arceus or Xerneas? Normal has its variations in every part of the world, but it does have some carry-overs consistent with various cultures. Sexuality, for one of them.

Serena is a lesbian. That's it, no lies, no sugarcoating, just the truth. She likes girls, not guys. And for some reason, everyone seems to hate her for it.

_Why_? she asks the invisible god, when she's cried herself to sleep and she feels so utterly, completely cold inside, when all the images of the angry slurs written on her locker or tucked into notes begin to fade, when she regains some semblance of normality.

She peers through the curtains of her window, stepping out of bed with her blanket wrapped around her like a shawl (a cocoon for the things she cannot defend herself from), and stares at the numerous stars in the dark, dark sky, her blonde curls messy and tangled and in her eyes, and she pushes them away and stares. Among those stars, among the reaches of the ever-expanding universe, she lets out a silent prayer to the god.

_Please_, she whispers in gentle, paper-thin tones. _Help me_.

-love-

Her small group of friends were all happy and encouraging when she came out to them about her sexual orientation. Shauna even clapped her on the back and said, "Well, I hope you're not in love with me, 'cause I'm in love with a guy!"

They all laughed, and in that moment, she felt as if others would be as accepting as her friends were.

Oh, she was wrong.

Her mother reacted thunderously when she let the words slip through her mouth ("Mom, yeah, I like girls. I'm gay."), her expression stiffening immediately, her eyes freezing into chips of ice, her lips curving downward into a hateful, almost disgusted frown.

"What?" she had hissed, fingernails digging into the tablecloth, something undeniably _loathing _on her face.

"I'm a lesbian," Serena muttered, quieter now, seeing all-too-well the outcome of this meeting even before it could have a chance to conclude.

"No. No, Serena, you're not a _lesbian_!" Her mother gave a hysterical chuckle. "No, not my girl, not my sweet girl, not my sweet girl, not my _fucking sweet girl no way_-"

"Mom, it's the truth."

"No," she snarled, beastial and guttural. "No, Serena, you don't know what you're talking about." She smiled, and it was so vacant and hollow and desperate that it made Serena want to scream. "You like boys, you've always liked boys, you've got a crush on that nice Calem from next door over, you're not a lesbian-"

"We're only friends!"

"NO!" Her mother slammed a hand onto the table, causing all the plates and glasses to shake violently. "You are out of your _mind_, young lady, you're not one of _them_!"

The way she uttered the last word, with such revulsion in her tone, felt like a stab in the chest. Serena gaped, but forced herself to have the final say.

"Mom, you're out of your mind," she said. "I'm a lesbian. I like girls. And there's nothing you can do about it."

Fury, cold and implacable, rose in her mother's mouth, ready to unleash another cutting remark when her daughter spoke. She froze again, only this time, it seemed permanent.

The unspoken chasm loomed in front of them, born from their words and widening in the painful days to come.

"Go to your room," her mother murmured. "Go to your room and lock your doors and don't you dare let me see your face."

She did. She went up the stairs, pulling the white door shut behind her, and collapsing onto her bed, weary and exhausted.

She cried.

-me-

She saw her mother once, crouched in front of an alter with the thick smell of incense in the air, and the woman was praying feverishly under her breath.

She wasn't sure, but from her hiding place behind the sofa, she was able to make out some of the words and discern the purpose of the prayer.

She stopped praying to the invisible god after that.

-dearly-

Serena grits her teeth and bites her tongue to stop from screaming as the razor drags across her pretty white skin and leaves a bright red slash. Blood oozes from the gash, and she feels a small amount of relief. Like she is purging her emotions with every cut, removing the darkness in her heart.

_Bleed, bleed, bleed. I'm bleeding out the sin._

_Bleed it out._

_LESBO BITCH_

_SLUT_

_WHORE_

_Bleed it out._

_FAG_

_SKANK_

_BURN IN HELL U PIECE OF TRASH_

_Bleed it out._

Another cut, another bite down on her tongue, and the blood flows off her arm and into the porcelain bathtub, stained by the many red trails that fall onto it. The scent of blood is everywhere in her bathroom, cloying and meaty and bitter, and she raises the razor again and makes another cut.

And another.

And another.

With each cut, another tear falls from her eyes. Her face is bright red and twisted into a paroxysm of anguish, but she needs this, needs it so desperately to bleed out the pain and suffering, needs it to feel comforted.

_Standing with her legs pressed together, arms flat against her sides like a toy soldier._

Slash. Blood spurts and scatters like rain.

_Asking the question. The pretty raven-haired girl and her buddies laughing in her face, saying, "Are you fucking serious? I don't date other chicks, lesbo bitch."_

_Running away with eyes brimming with liquid._

Slash. Warmth trickling through her outstretched fingers and splattering onto the cold porcelain. Her arm feels numb; the bathtub is scarlet.

She must bleed it all out.

This is how she shows love.

* * *

v. boy

I can't really believe it, now that I've reached this point in my life.

Ten years. Ten fucking years. Wowzers.

I'm at that point where I'm bordering the cusp of thirty, where I'm crossing the rubicon and entering adulthood. In your twenties, you're still kind of a kid, exploring a whole new world of businesses, drinking, partying, driving, and all that shit. If you're really good, you'll be working in the League as an Ace Trainer, or a Gym Leader, or maybe an Elite Four member, or, if you're really amazing, the Champion. And you'll be testing the limits of your power and what your team can do. It'll be like childhood all over again, when you've been awarded some new privilege or toy and you're curious as to how it works.

But damn, I feel so old. Ten years is a long way to go. I was just 15 back then, and now I'm 25, working as an accountant and cycling through endless streams of numbers because I wasn't good enought to make it to the big leagues.

I'm not sad about that; few people ever do, and I'd accepted the statistics long ago. I wasn't part of the ten percent, and that's fine.

I'm just sad because I'm the only one left.

My friends and I were a pretty big group. Five people, all intertwined, all knowing each others' hopes and dreams, but not always our deepest, darkest fears. Because people like to deny what they don't like, they like to repress the bad memories and shove them into the most abyssal corners of their minds to be forgotten forever, glossing everything over with that cheery, middle-class suburban attitude of, "Everything is fucking fantastic today, let's frolic and play and pretend we're okay!"

It's a shitty attitude, if you ask me. It's like putting a band-aid on a septic cut; you can try and cover up the decay, but it's just going to spread and spread and you'll get gangrene and have your arm amputated. You've got to attack it right when it happens, to deal with the pain and all the shit life throws at us.

I guess I dealt with it better than my friends did, considering I'm alive and they aren't. Trevor was the smallest of our group, and I one, I think, we should've been more watchful of. Trevor was a bit of a nerd, but a friendly one. He knew more cool trivia than any of us did, and we used to ask him all sorts of questions like he was on a quiz show, and he would smile and fire off answers and get them all right. He was also totally straight, despite what some of the bullies said about him. He seemed like a nice kid, the spiffy, well-dressed person in your neighborhood, the kid you could go to for answers on your math homework. Yeah, Trevor was a cool dude, up until the time he came into the school and killed a bunch of people.

Trevor was a psychic, did you know that? I didn't. But psychic phenomena has already been proven to scientifically exist, both by the Pokemon exhibiting said powers (classified as Psychic-types, duh) and the by the surprisingly large percentage of people with extra-developed minds who have telepathy and telekinesis and a few other powers I don't care to remember. Anyway, Trevor was a psychic of the latter variety, a telekinetic, and he could move shit around with his mind. Not just _move_, like push stuff around, but bend spoons until they fell to pieces, make all your car windows explode, levitate heavy objects and throw them at you, and other crap like that.

He came into school that day all calm and collected; it was eerie, like the kind of calm and collected look on a sociopath's face right before he kills someone (also, was Trevor a sociopath? To that I say, fuck no, he was just misunderstood, you bastards). He blew the doors open and everyone kind of looked startled, and then the lights starting blowing out and the posters started ripping themselves to pieces and I could tell he was _pissed _as hell. And then he started walking through the hallways, locking every door and window telekinetically so people couldn't get out-rather, the people _he_ didn't want to get out couldn't, but locking onto a specific group of individuals is hard and so he was pragmatic and locked the whole school.

When he found the bullies who had tormented him, he opened them. Literally, opened them up. They were screaming and their entrails were flopping out of their bellies and it smelled like sewage. I could see one of the guys' stomach, all slimy and red and I almost threw up. He made everyone watch, like he was proving a point, that Trevor was not one to be fucked around with. He killed them all in creative ways, impaling them on flagpoles or breaking their bones one by one, and I had to watch it all. It was sick. It was horrifying. It wasn't Trevor.

But in the end, someone snapped out of it long enough to find a phone and called 911. The cops came, there was a big scene, they broke through the doors and started firing at him. And Trevor was _grinning_, you know, like a fucking Jack-o-lantern. He stopped all their bullets and sent them right back, killing more people. And he actually looked happy while he was doing it, like it was the funniest thing in the world. There was blood on his shirt and he just looked at it and wiped it off, like it was a piece of lint. Blood from a human, and he just wiped it off.

To make a long story short, more cops came, they kept firing, and he was wearing out. Some of the bullets were slicing into his arms, his legs, and he was all bloody but he was _angry_, he had a purpose. He was going to go out with a bang, not like this. So, he pulled up everything he had in him and make the entire school building collapse.

I was safe, Shauna was safe, Tierno was safe, and Serena got off with a broken leg. Some of the other kids? Not so lucky. After the incident, there was this huge psychic stigmatism and the school was cordoned off until they could retrieve the bodies. Trevor was one of them. His parents buried him in a family plot years back, and you can still see his grave if you go there. Right under the big oak tree with all the wreaths draped on it.

The school's been declared a sort of ground-zero, now. People go there and pay their respects, light candles for those who died. They don't light a candle for Trevor, though, because they think he was a monster.

But was he really a monster? Maybe he was just angry and no one helped him. Not even we did, me and my friends. We chose to deny it, reject the nightmares and stuff them under the carpet. And that's what happened.

Shauna, she was a different case entirely. Although, I guess she did share some similarities with Trevor, but not a lot. She was always the prettiest girl in our group, even prettier than Serena sometimes. She had a great olive complexion, like a Mediterranean complexion, and in the summer, her skin would always be glowing. She looked radiant, like she belonged on the cover of a Pokestylist magazine and not in our little town. Her hair was this deep mocha color, and her eyes were kind of grayish-blue, like diamonds, and they were fucking beautiful. She was like some goddess brought down to earth, and Tierno, Trevor, and I, we always harbored little crushes on her.

Anyway, she lived in one of the town's poorer districts; the ghetto, some might say, but it was just a part that had fallen on hard times and which the region didn't want to fix up because they were in an economic bind and besides, when have politicians really given a shit? She always wore pink, frilly clothes and jeans torn to make shorts; the pink stuff she got from Serena, mostly, or at some of the cheaper places in town. Shauna always wore her hair up in little pigtails, and she was always really happy. Bubbly, some might say. Ebullient. Joyous. Jubilant. But she really wasn't that happy. The happiness was just a facade. Suburban middle-class glossing over, remember? It was her way with dealing with the shit going on in her life.

Shauna, she worked the night shift, if you know what I mean. She got paid little, though, despite her good looks; she was used, and then tossed aside like a toy. In the early days, she used to call us right after each 'job' she performed, sobbing and in hysterics, and then one of us would help calm her down. It was usually Serena she related best with, but she was on good terms with all of us, and we cared for her in that tight, childhood way that friends do. We even offered her a place to stay with us, but she always shook her head and declined. She still had, I think, pride left, and was unwilling to accept much more than a few donations at a time. So, she went out on the streets, walked, got picked up, got treated like a ragdoll, then spat back on her doorstep like a rodent.

I guess that, after a while, she kind of hardened herself. Turned her heart to stone. She still smiled and hung out with us, but she was a different Shauna. There was something cynical about the way she looked at you, something more restrained about the way she walked, something cold and dead in her face. It was like looking into the face of a corpse.

The official story is that some perverted, sick fuck kidnapped her and had her do more than the usual-and by that, I mean I'm not going to go into the details, because she deserves at least that measure of decency, if nothing else. But the police busted into the creep's house a few days later, alerted by the sounds of screams and what sounded like a violent struggle that had been going on for a while. The neighbors made their complaints, thank god. But by then, it was already too late for her.

She was asphyxiated. Choked to death, basically. There was this horrible, ugly bruise-colored mark around her neck, and I think it was the only blemish I had ever seen on her. Even up to the time she died, she maintained the facade. The creep got sent to jail for life (fucking bastard, I'm glad he's rotting in there right now) and Shauna got buried at some small cemetery with a small tombstone in a small casket. We all came out to the funeral, just like with Trevor's, and we put flowers over her grave. Roses; she liked those best.

She was a good friend, Shauna. And gorgeous. Maybe, if her life had turned out differently, she would still be alive, a model for Vogue or something, and we would still get together from time to time and laugh over a cup of strong coffee.

Maybe.

Now Tierno, he was the life of our party of five, besides Shauna. He was the party guy, the dancer, the rapper, and, I think, the most street-smart of any of us. He was also kind of wide in the waist, but we didn't judge him. He was a big, jolly fat guy, and he was awesome. Tierno was always ready to bust a move or crack a joke, or, if we pooled our cash, finish three quadruple, double-scoop, whipped cream-topped, sprinkle-drenched, cookie-crumbled banana splits in under twenty seconds. He could eat; he was a self-proclaimed 'connoisseur of fast food,' and nobody dared challenge his title because he could own us in any eating competition.

Whenever we went to play, Tierno always came over to our houses, and we never came over to his. It was mostly because of his mother, who would always glare at us disapprovingly when we went to his house, watching us with her beady eyes from over the rim of the sink. It was like she hated all children, even her own son. That's kind of why we stopped going; every time, you could feel her eyes on your back. It was scary. She really did scare us, Tierno's mom.

I'm still not entirely clear on what went on in their household, but whatever it was, it was bad enough that Tierno snapped. It was in the news for a while, even going global. The other regions featured it because it was just so fucked up. Even now, I think about Tierno, Tierno the dancer, Tierno, who could eat three super-large ice cream splits in seconds, and I can't really believe it. It's shocking, certainly. But I've made connections over the years, and the subsequent police investigations have revealed a lot. There's even a website about it, but I digress.

So, it was on Christmas. Apparently, the neighbors called and reported a fire in their vicinity (Serena and I were on vacation, so we didn't hear about until we got back). The fire crew came with a bunch of Water-types to put out the fire, but when they got to the house, they saw his mom's body just trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey by the tree that stood on their yard. It was an oak tree, big and sturdy, and she was hanging from it by the nape of her neck. Electrocuted by christmas lights. Her clothes were still smoldering, they said, and she had this weird, dazed look in her eyes, like she couldn't believe it either. It was almost unnecessary, but necessary at the same time; like a catharsis, a declaration to the world. Almost like what Trevor did. There were sparks, and embers on her wool sweater, and it was terrible.

As the for the house itself, Tierno's was one of the wooden buildings. Most of the houses in our neighborhood were made of brick, but Tierno's was made of wood, so it was twice as susceptible to fire. He took gasoline, covered every flat surface that he could (and some of the ones that weren't), drenched himself in the stuff, and lit a match. Needless to say, fire caught on very quickly, and the whole time, he was sitting at the dinner table like he was about to have a meal, and he just immolated himself and the entire house. It was a huge fire; you could see it from miles away, blazing bright red against the snowy night sky like a horrible beacon.

He was trying to escape something, I realize that now. He was trying to escape his mother, who was like some formidable giantess to him or something. Always domineering, always callous and cruel, and he finally escaped, and he did it in style. That sounds horrible, I know, but it's the truth. There was definitely abuse in their home, I realize that now. What kind, I'm not sure, but it went on a lot and for years until it just _broke _him. How damaged his psyche must have been to set off something like that, I'm can't imagine. But he was bullied, just like Trevor, only here, his bullies lived with him and were supposed to take care of him.

I feel so bad for Tierno. He had his whole life ahead of him. He wanted to be a dancer, I remember. And maybe slim down a bit and get married, but _damn_, the things he endured to get to that point-I don't even want to dwell on them. He was a gentle giant, Tierno, and a really nice guy.

Suffice to say, there was nothing to bury. Only ashes, and it was hard to tell which were his amidst the wreckage of the house.

And Serena. Oh shit, Serena. She was one of the worst.

Serena was pretty, usually being the prettiest girl in our group unless Shauna outdid her, and she smelled like strawberries. It was her signature fragrance; it was on her clothes, in her hair, on her skin, and it was fantastic. Like pheremones, there was something magnetic about the strawberry smell, something that drove you wild a bit.

She had really pretty eyes that changed depending on how you looked at them. Sometimes they were grey, sometimes they were gold, and once, they even looked blue. And she had long, flowing, strawberry-blonde hair that looked like silk. She always wore skirts to show off her legs, which, if I might say, were supermodel legs. She and Shauna had it cut out for the fashion industry when they grew up.

Serena was a stunner, that was for sure. She was also kind of quiet, just like me, which sort of helped us bond and get closer. We used to be a trio within a clique with Trevor, until he died. After that, it was just us, and we were both in a sort of daze. It's hard when a friend dies, especially when you're all just kids. I mean, you think you're invincible, right? Nothing bad can happen to you; at least, your mind whispers these lies into your ears, saying, "Sure, go ahead, jump that rusty fence with your skateboard! Naw, nothing's gonna happen!" or "You should definitely try and leap off your swing and land without getting an eyeful of wood chips!"

Invincibility is the lie of childhood. It's a fun lie, fitting in with the suburban idealogy of 'everything here is fucking fantastic.'

We made out once or twice (Audra, sorry about this) when we were young. I was seventeen and she was seventeen. Her lips tasted like sugar and spice, and I felt totally overwhelmed when our lips made contact. Young, naive love, you know? We got high off of each other in that way only kids can do. She snuck into my room, I snuck into hers, everyone thought we were a couple.

Then she came out. Yeah, I was a little disappointed that we wouldn't ever get married, but we were still friends. Everything was good. Our little gang took it all pretty well, but her mom blew up when Serena told her. She just _froze_, turning into a block of ice. She stopped speaking to her daughter at all, not even treating her like a person, but as some sort of deformed, disfigured creature. She treated Serena like a monster, and I could see how much it hurt her.

That made me sad for her and angry at her mom, too. I mean, seriously woman, _she's your damn daughter! _It was both horrifying and tragic, seeing Serena and her mom grow farther and farther apart. It was like watching something die in slow, drawn-out, agonizing motion.

School was just as bad. For every person who accepted her, there were two more who hated her guts, and just because of her sexual orientation. The hot cheerleaders, the jocks, and then the purely mean, cold-hearted bastards who picked on her every day, all through the end of school. They put notes in her locker calling her a 'fag' and a 'lesbo bitch', and she would open it every day to see these fucking notes everywhere. She would just stare, stare, _stare_ at these things like she was hypnotized by them, and I would help her peel them off and throw them in the garbage.

This happened even before Trevor did, and even after the event, when the school was rebuilding and it was supposed to be a time to remember what bullying could provoke, they still went after her like rabid dogs. Everywhere she went, she heard people calling her names. 'Slut.' 'Whore.' 'Skank.' 'Bitch.' She looked so small back then, marching through hell and back for all those school years, hearing the names and taunts and having them pierce her skin.

The teachers, they hardly did shit. Some really tried to help, but the rest? Fuck them. Fuck them all, the phonies. They saw this little girl being bullied day after day, and they just said, "Okay, class, please stop making fun of her, please, okay?" and went back to reading some magazine or eating lunch.

Fuck them. They didn't do jackshit for Trevor, they did zilch for Serena. And you know what? They'll go to their graves with it on their conscience.

She started wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants, foregoing the skirts and short tops. Why? To hide. She was a cutter, and I still curse myself for not finding out sooner. She cut herself with a razor just to feel better, to feel worth _something_. The sleeves were to hide it, to hide the ugly marks.

She almost bled to death the day she asked out the girl she loved and got rejected. The girl, a raven who was a Poison-type specialist and who played on the volleyball team, gave her the finger and told her to fuck off because she "didn't date lesbo bitches."

Serena called me, that day. Her voice was hoarse, and I could hear running water in the background.

She asked, "Calem? Am I worthless?"

She was crying, and oh god, it was so painful to hear her asking me for assurance, asking me to tell her that she was a _someone _and not a _something_.

I did my best, and the next day, she came to school. Pale, shaken, but alive. I never knew I had saved her life until years later, when she called me again.

Serena and I, we were the last ones. The only ones who survived the darkness of our town and the people that inhabited it. As I said earlier, though, I'm the last one left. Serena struggled with depression all through her life, and she ended it a year ago when it became too much to handle. I saw her name in the obituary and had to look twice. I thought my eyes were lying, I took off my glasses and had some businessman read it twice, three times. And still it was there, glaring at me in black and white, with Serena's pretty, smiling face pasted where the photos go.

She went farther when she decided to do it. Instead of just cutting, she targeted her wrists, and she was lying in the bathtub when the paramedics found her. The water was red, they say, from all the blood that had poured out.

She was like an angel, Serena. She was beautiful, like Shauna was. She was smart, she was kind, and I loved her for a while. No, I loved her all the way, all the way up to her suicide. She was always beautiful. They all were beautiful in their own way, Tierno, Shauna, Trevor, and Serena.

We thought we were invincible. Turns out we were wrong, huh?

As for me, I already said I'm an accountant, and Audra, you know that enough. I guess I had it the easiest, considering the fates of my friends.

My mom and dad didn't get along well. He was drinking, she liked to yell at him. They got in fights a lot, and as a kid, there is nothing quite as terrifying as seeing your parents, the people who are supposed to love each other unconditionally, having a bottle-throwing, punch-flying fight. It's burned into your memory forever. I still see them, even as an adult.

My dad drank, gambled, and did all that deadbeat stuff. My mom worked two jobs to keep us in our house. Eventually, she got sick of it, had a divorce, and called it quits with men for the rest of her life. After my dad, she lost her faith in marriage, and, to a higher extent, love itself. At night, she would smile at me tiredly and tell me to go to bed and say my prayers. She never lost that tiredness. Dad had ingrained it into the very fibers of her being.

I went on a brief training stint for a while, won badges, and caught Pokemon. It was an experience like no other, I have to say. Pokemon, they're incredible. You're just lost, the first time you see one and see what they can do. It's alluring, like a black hole that pulls you in and you just let it do its thing. Training and being on the road was one of the happiest times of my life.

Eventually, though, I guess I sort of fell out of it. Guilt, I suppose, and sadness, because that depression was starting to affect me, too. I quit, used my battle-won money to pay for college and help my mom, and that was that. The end of my journey.

I told you I wasn't one of the special ten percent, didn't I? I'm not sad about my decision, nope.

But my friends. I can't shake the feeling that I could've done something more; no, I know I could've done something more for each of them. I should have. I could have done it, and I know it, and that's what drives me insane. The grief and guilt are eating me up, and every day, I feel worse and worse, like I'm slipping into quicksand.

We made a pact, once, to head out on our journeys together. A group effort.

But now, you see, that's not possible. Because they're all dead, and I'm still alive.

That's why I'm writing this, Audra. To explain my childhood, and why I'm doing what I'm going to do. I'm sorry to everyone this will affect, including you, but I can't sleep, and I can't get them out of my mind. They're ghosts, Audra, and they haunt my head day and night. This is how I'm going to find closure, to end this twisted cycle at last, so don't be sad.

You know I love you and I'll always love you. You mean the world to me, but I have to let go. I wish you the best of luck in everything, and I give you every scrap of love I have left. Be happy for me, Audra. I'm not leaving, but going on a new adventure.

So, sorry. As feeble as that sounds, I'm sorry. So sorry for what I'm doing. I have to, though, and I hope you understand.

I'm finally going on that journey. My friends might have gone ahead, but now I'm catching up.

We can finally be together again.

_-With love, _

_Calem_

* * *

**a/n: Bullying is wrong. Abuse is wrong. And taking your life is the most tragic thing of all, both for yourself and for your loved ones. To those out there reading this and thinking of suicide, it gets better. That sounds cheesy and cliched, but really, it does. So don't end your life. Get help, talk to your friends, and live another day.**


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